In 1992, in his famous like a novel, Daniel Pennac offered freedom to his readership, granting him ten imprescriptible rights. However, six years have passed since the publication ofThey lied to mefirst volume of the final part of the series — The Malaussene case —, six years during which Pennac ironically held his readership hostage. Fortunately, these days appears the second volume, which ends the famous saga for good: Malaussene Terminus.
Obviously, the first volume had ended in the heart of a narrative jolt, leaving us, for six years, with beating hearts and irritated scalps. The youngest of the Malaussene tribe had kidnapped Georges Lapietà, a powerful businessman and former minister with a loose tongue. A theatrical kidnapping, in reality, where the hostage was consenting, which was to feed an artistic performance. However, a few criminals, genuine ones, found the idea good — and profitable — and in turn kidnapped Lapieta. The ransom demanded from the French government is astronomical and, failing to honor it, the kidnappers will leak information that will drag many of the most prominent figures of contemporary France into the mud. This main plot is interwoven with numerous secondary stories, brilliantly interrelated.
Pennac weaves a complex, albeit limpid web, with numerous ramifications that converge towards the final, spectacular and unexpected fall. As always, the writer borrows from the codes of thriller, keeping us spellbound by a multiplication of unpredictable reversals, deployed in a meticulous staging.
Benjamin Malaussène, famous scapegoat, accepts here a more secondary role, notably offering light to his youngest sister, Verdun, examining magistrate, and to his niece Maracuja, “pure condensation of the future”. The protagonist, Pépère, seems fresh on the adventure and embodies the bad guy on duty, cruel and cunning: “He was a being of revenge. Perhaps he was spending his life taking revenge for being born. An infamous character, he nevertheless escapes a Manichean structure, in particular through a wisdom that reveals a certain humanism: “He who converts into knowledge what falls on his head, that one is not afraid of anything. Be curious until the end. Only curiosity overcomes fear. »
Final fireworks of a widely celebrated series since its first installment (To the happiness of the ogres1985), Malaussene Terminus is a gift. Daniel Pennac took an obvious pleasure in writing, a contagious pleasure, where the mastery of the language, the repartee of the dialogues and the construction of the characters are revealed to us with pleasure. To the followers who are saddened by this end, it is good to recall the fourth imprescriptible right of the reader: “The right to read again”. By cheating a little, we could then suggest that the Malaussene saga is rather an infinite cycle. Like a revolution.